Have you ever had one of those moments where someone used a particular word excessively in conversation? You think to yourself, searching for an explanation why such an uncommon word has suddenly received such regularity. You wonder if Billy Bombastic had just received one of those “New Word Everyday” calendars and you simply bumped into them on “extraneous” day, which is not only bizarre due to the excessive use of the word, but also because his use of it was indeed “extraneous” in virtually every utterance. A slightly different scenario might be with a loved one where they choose to use the repetition of a word in conversations with you to somehow ensure you remember it or catch a hint. It’s as if the conversation has become a giant syringe subliminally injecting the key word into the recesses of that bucket-with-a-hole you call your memory. It is fair to say that we all adopt pet words into our vocabulary that somehow launch themselves from our tongues too often. Even within church circles, we have burdened our vocabulary with words that may have truth to them, but our use of them is baffling to those outside of our church context— “fellowship,” “ministry,” “conviction,” “saved,” and the like. Whatever the case, sometimes this makes the hearer want to respond with a mildly irritated “For the love of GOD . . .” Look carefully in this section and you will find John repeating a word to his hearers. Without irritation and with fatherly care, it is as if he is saying “For the love of God, look for the love of God.” Without looking at any other criteria, this section of the text includes twenty-seven uses of the word “love” in its different tenses (all based upon the same Greek word), and twenty-one uses of the word “God.” You don’t have to be an astrophysicist to understand the thrust of what John wants his hearers to capture. God is love, He loved us first, and any love we have to offer is borrowed from His.